One of the most famous matches in tennis, a sport filled with colorful lore, bitter rivalries and lost opportunities, was the 1919 Wimbledon women's final, when the young French player Suzanne Lenglen took on the venerable Dorothea Lambert Chambers.

The first final after World War I, a gritty, drama-filled affair where both women gave their all as the match dragged into a third set. Monsieur Lenglen, legend has it, then tossed a sugar cube soaked in cognac to his tiring daughter. With a new burst of energy, she rallied to save two matchpoints and win the match 9-7.

Today, with the stricter rules that govern the sport, it wouldn't be allowed to happen. The sugar cube would be ferried away to be analyzed for controlled substances, Monsieur Lenglen would be censured for assisting his daughter and, perhaps, the career of the up-and-coming player would fall victim to arrested development amid the scandal (Lenglen went on to become the greatest player of her generation).

That's not to say that tennis does not need rules, especially when it comes to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In an era where technology has made the game faster and more demanding than ever before, there are bound to be players who will try to secure the winning edge through cheating. One of the most prominent was 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda, who tested positive for the steroid nandrolone, was banned for a year and never returned.

Others have included the 2005 French Open runner-up Mariano Puerta, suspended from the game for use of a cardiac stimulant, and Bulgarian teenager Sesil Karatantcheva, who also tested positive for nandrolone.

Anyone who dopes themselves up to cheat and beat the opposition should, of course, receive suitable punishment. But the case of France's Richard Gasquet, currently suspended from the sport for allegedly testing positive for cocaine, and Martina Hingis before him, who tested positive for the same drug at the 2007 Wimbledon and was subsequently banned two years, shows that hard, fast rules should not always apply when it comes to the issue of drugs.

All drugs are not created equal when it comes to enhancing an athlete's performance. Cocaine acts on the central nervous system, producing the desired euphoria which, Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York University School of Medicine professor and lead author of Drugs and the Athlete, in an interview with ESPN.com, said was of no benefit to athletes.

"The few studies that exist suggest that little to no performance gains are incurred from cocaine and its amphetamine-like properties," the article says. "Cocaine is notable for distorting the user's perception of reality; for example, an athlete may perceive increased performance and decreased fatigue in the face of actual decreased performance in both strength and endurance activities."

It continues that cocaine is universally banned in both professional and amateur sports primarily to protect the health of the athlete and the reputation of the sport clearly not because it will have them outrunning or outsmarting their opponent.

Hingis was a brilliant talent who made a successful return to the sport after a long hiatus. She also had many detractors who were put off by the arrogance and smugness that comes with achieving great success at an early age. But even some of her harshest critics pointed out that she would not have gained an advantage by being coked up on court, and acknowledged her desultory performance at Wimbledon was an indication (the Swiss player has always denied using cocaine).

Similarly, if Gasquet is confirmed to have taken cocaine (he also denies the allegation), it is unlikely to have done his game any good. A player with the most beautiful single-handed backhand in men's tennis, once dubbed the "baby Federer", he has suffered poor results recently and fallen in the rankings, from the top 10 in mid-2008 to 27 in February. He was ranked 21st last week.

Many tennis players have reportedly taken recreational drugs. In A Paper Life, Tatum Neal writes that her former husband John McEnroe "drugs around the house for hospitality, I guess like having a wine cellar. For him, drug use was strictly recreational, take it or leave it ."

Vitas Gerulaitis, one of the top male players of the late 1970s and 80s, fought a 10-year battle with drugs before his death at age 40 in 1994, and his good friend Bjorn Borg, one of the sport's greats, also has lived under the cloud of rumored drug use.

The difference during their heyday was the rules governing cocaine use and testing were not as strict as today, before a spate of cocaine-related deaths of US basketball and American football players. It was only in 1995 that former Australian, French and US Open champion Mats Wilander tested positive for cocaine, at the tail end of his career.

The reality for Gasquet's generation is that cocaine is more available and accepted as a party drug among people with ample disposable income; it has become "the new weed", according to actor Teron Beal in the 2007 New York Times article Cocaine: Hidden in Plain Sight.

Hingis has retired and says she will not come back once her ban is up in 2010. She paid a very heavy price; despite her achievements, she will always be remembered for her drug ban. Gasquet, if his B sample also tests positive, could face a three-year ban. He could still make a comeback as he would be 26 once the ban was up, but even with his talent it would be difficult.

Cocaine is illegal but it is not a steroid, and definitely not a performance enhancer. To use the same absolutes as with other stimulants in meting out punishment to athletes who have used it is illogical and unfair. Suspend athletes who test positive as an example to others and get them counseling, but do not impose potentially career-ending bans. Everybody makes mistakes; give them a second chance.

The writer is the editor of (br> The Jakarta Post WEEKENDER.

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